


If Our Chests Were Open

by coricomile



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-22
Updated: 2015-06-22
Packaged: 2018-04-05 14:04:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4182648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coricomile/pseuds/coricomile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>High school hearts, Kurt thinks, are too fragile for anything useful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If Our Chests Were Open

**Author's Note:**

> Set after Theatricality.

The room is silent.

It's a little tense, the heavy weight of the dry air settling on their shoulders as the clock ticks quietly overhead. Kurt's at his desk, a shuffle of papers under his hands; homework and sheet music and notes taken out of _Vogue_ and _Vanity Fair_. A click of the hands on the clock. Whisper ruffle of papers.

The guest bed has always creaked, the springs old and a little rusted under the dingy cotton top of the mattress, and Kurt can hear every shift of Finn's arms legs back neck, can pick out the sounds like he's known them for forever. A shift of weight to his hands to his lower back to his legs. He's sitting up, crinkle of low count bed sheets.

"I'm trying," Finn says, rough and too loud in the silence. They both wince. An essay flutters to the floor.

"I know," Kurt replies, softer. They don't look at each other, haven't really for a while. They don't say _I'm sorry_ because it's getting overused, raw and useless.

High school hearts, Kurt thinks, are too fragile for anything useful; tender and open, still developing their shells. Thunder heartbeats and slow burn disappointment thick like blood. He likes to think that he's building his walls on schedule, but the ache that hasn't left his chest for days is saying otherwise.

The radio clicks on, the springs of the bed screeching as Finn reaches over to the dresser to change the station. Fizzle of static. Talk radio. Akon. It hits the walls and stops before bouncing back, absorbed by the plaster. Kurt taps his pencil in time with the bassline and tries to focus on his algebra homework.

There's a red vinyl curtain in the loose shape of a dress on the floor of the closet, the hem flipping over to show safety pins instead of thread. It's in a heap, crumpled, torn under the shoulder from a pin ripped loose. Kurt closes his eyes and breathes through his nose. In, out. Katy Perry on the radio. The squeak of Finn pressing his feet to the floor.

"I can't be that for you," Finn says, muffled. Face in his hands, probably. Kurt's shoulders feel tight, a tension wire in his spine that's going to snap if he so much as budges.

"I'm not asking you to be," he says, jaw clenched. It's terrible for his skin, worse for the mounting headache swallowing him whole. Squeak of the mattress, soft sounds of socks on carpet. The heavy heat of a hand hovering above his back without actually touching it.

"It's not because it's you," Finn says, like it makes any difference. His hand drops, knuckles knocking against the back of Kurt's chair. Kurt presses his eyes shut tighter and breathes. The tender outsides of his heart are still exposed, bare and weathered. He's not strong enough for this.

"Please stop," he says quietly. Breath against papers, tension wire drawing tighter with each inhale.

"I just wanted you to know." Finn's voice hangs heavy in the air, the static of the lost radio signal background music. The wire snaps. Kurt bows his head towards his desk and tries to draw in air around the lump in his throat. "I'm sorry."

Kurt laughs, a sharp cough of a noise, and says, "Me too."


End file.
